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Far East

Octavo, vi, 111 pages with several illustrations plus 32 pages of plates and a colour frontispiece (from a watercolour); all illustrations and plates are by the author.

Bright orange cloth with the stylized title in yellow on the spine and front cover; covers a little rubbed and bumped at the extremities; an excellent copy with the dustwrapper a little worn with minor loss to the extremities.

A 'brilliant and authentic glimpse of India and China at war'. The flyleaf is inscribed and signed in pencil by Cecil Beaton 'To Sir Horace & Lady Seymour with all good wishes & with many Happy memories of Chungking'. Sir Horace James Seymour (1885-1978) was the British Ambassador to China, 1942 to 1946, based in the provisional capital Chungking (present-day Chongqing). There is a second inscription, presumably in Sir Horace's hand, below Beaton's: 'Chungking. Handed on to Mr [?] Bristowe to read over the Hump. Christmas 1945'. South Australian-born Robert Francis Bristowe (1904-1959), was a King's Messenger for the British Foreign Office, operating at this time between Calcutta and Chungking (see the Adelaide 'Advertiser', Tuesday 16 October 1945, page 6). His extensive travels over many years in this role resulted in him being the inspiration behind Santos (see 'The Australian Pipeliner', 16 March 2016).